The present invention relates to a respiration monitoring system, and more particularly to a respiration monitoring system capable of monitoring the state of disorder of the patient""s respiratory system during sleep.
A conventional medical system for diagnosing a respiratory disease of a sleep apnea syndrome is shown in FIG. 7. Here, this system 100 has an air flow sensor 101, a chest/abdominal movement sensor 102, a snore sensor 103, a body attitude sensor 104, a blood oxygen saturation sensor 105, and a data recorder 106. These sensors 101-105 are put on the patient""s body during sleep. The data produced by the sensors is recorded by the data recorder 106.
The recorded data is sent by off-line transfer from the data recorder 106 to an external data analyzer 107, by which the data is analyzed for the diagnosis of respiratory disease. In the diagnostic procedure, the distribution of blood oxygen saturation is first examined, and if a disease is suspected, the patient undergoes more precise inspections based on the data provided by the remaining sensors.
However, for diagnosis as shown in FIG. 7, it is necessary to put many sensors 101-105 on the patient""s body during sleep. Therefore, it is not only awkward for the patient to wear these sensors 101-105 with lead wires during sleep, but the sensors must be removed and the patient must be turned over. The present invention was developed in light of these drawbacks.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a respiration monitoring system which is capable of monitoring the state of disorder of the patient""s respiratory system during sleep based on detecting body movement caused by respiration, and without requiring the sensors to be placed directly on the patient""s body.
It is a further object of the present invention is to provide a respiration monitoring system that is easily used at home for monitoring the patient""s respiratory system, and is useful for the primary care of sleep apnea syndrome.
Further areas of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description provided hereinafter. It should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are intended for purposes of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.